Other ways of connecting...what about Twitter?

With the elimination of required weekly discussions, and some collaborative team work, I have concerns about social connection. To try to address this, I have added in a few collaborative activities (for "Hands-on/Minds-on" assignments) and no-penalty peer reviews for Culminating Projects. But, I have been thinking about something more organic, more natural. So, I would like to invited everyone in the class to join me in a Twitter community. I also think it would be fun to include other faculty, and other eLearning students.

Here's my thinking about how it might play out...

One of the IT 5130 students is reading something in the Mayer book and has a question about a term or phrase. She immediately tweets the group, and gets a couple of responses. This allows for a little back-and-forth communication about Mayer, message design, and so on. Another student is working on an assignment and is wondering about embedding music. He tweets the group and gets a response. Another student can't believe what she has just read in Tufte and needs to share. So, she tweets the group and finds someone else who can't believe it either. And so on.

This seems much more natural than logging into eCollege, getting into the course shell, then getting into a discussion forum...and then waiting for someone to respond later (after she or he has already moved on to other work, thoughts, issues).

Also, I have three conferences this fall...and so will be away for about 2 weeks total. I thought it would be fun to tweet everyone from the conferences, let them know what folks are sharing and talking about. A sort of "reporting from the field" experience. I think this could be a good way for us to stay connected.

So, this is my plan. Fingers crossed.